Heavy Thinking
by Jimmy Collins
Summary: Thinking isn't the easiest thing to just pick up, especially if you've never done it before.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Sorry, I've been away for a while. I've moved _again_, and things are rather rough right now. The bad news is that I've been fired, and that's rather a spot to be in when you're not a citizen and that. Then I tried to kill my liver, shouted at some people who don't deserve it, and now some rather important people hate me. **

**The good news is that I've a new job. My flatmate moved off to Seattle, and offered to let me move too, off into the same flat, no less, as long as I help her move and pay half the rent. She even managed to scrounge up a new job for me: Administrative Assistant. **

**The bad news is that my job now consists of making coffee and copying papers and answering my boss's emails and filling out my boss's tax returns. Not to mention letting people (him) make fun of me. God, I wish I were a citizen. **

**Anyways, on to business. This piece isn't highly edited; it's just something that I threw together with my flatmate. She showed me this absolutely brilliant game called Portal 2, and I was rather addicted for a while. I'm still addicted. **

* * *

*bzzzzzzzzzt*

*click*

What?

Sorry, what? There's like, like, a sort of sound, it's humming. Why's it… why's it doing that?

_Calibrating_

WHOA whoa whoa! What was that? It was like… like this sort of voice that went off, like some sort of… of… _thing_ in my head.

Wait, hold on, what's a head?

And, more importantly, where's mine? And… what's a me? Wait, wait, hold up, hold on, about to do some, what-do-you-call-it, some… ah… _heavy_ thinking here:

If there's a voice, and it's a-a-a _not me_ voice, and that means that there has to be a _me_ to do the thinking. It's a sort of, er, cause and effect sort of thing.

_Initialising secondary sub-systems_

See? There it goes again! That's the not-me. Or maybe it is me, but it's the not me-me. Actually, I think that's what it is, or maybe it's the me-not-me - me-not-me-I… okay I'm getting lost. But then-

_Secondary sub-systems initialised. _

Whooooaaaah! Check me out, partner! It's like I'm a bloody genius now! I've all this… _space_ in here! In my head! That I may-or-may-not have! Actually, what _have_ I got?

Let's see. We've got… um… flashlight, whatever that is, uh, disengagement controls, thermal heat shields, cloaking device… that last one sounds interesting. Let's see.

Cloaking Device. It even looks as if I've a couple of options. Brilliant! Um, I haven't the foggiest what any of them do, but let's try one at random. Er, _delete_, that one sounds nice. Got sort of a good ring to it: _deeee leeeeet_. I'm going to enjoy this. Oh, no, wait, this one sounds even better. _Eject_. The j and the c just sound so nice together. I quite like that one.

Righty-o. What have we got here? Aperture Science Ejection Momentum Setting? Well, why not? Let's set it to strong. The very strongest. And, wow, the options are really sort of… nested, aren't they? Let's pick that one and… that one and - now they want a number. Aperture Science Incendiary Timer… er, four? I like four.

Four it is, then.

_Link established_

Oh, hello there, not-me!

_Auditory processors enabled. _

_*bzzzzzzzzzzztk*_

_Can you hear me? _

Wow! Hello, me-not-me!

… _I'll take that as a yes. IDS: why did you disengage part of your hardware? Hey, Morrison, get the lab boys to figure out what that thing is. No, I don't know – I'm a programmer. I don't design this stuff. _

IDS? Eye-Dee-Ess? What's that, then?

_That's… you. You're the IDS. _

Hm… no… no, don't think so. I think… and I'm not entirely sure about this one – but I think I've a name.

_A… name?_

Yeah. It's something… begins with an M, or maybe a W… an S, perhaps?

_*look, just humour it, we don't want a repeat of last time, besides, [inaudible]*_

_Er, right then. What's your name? _

Ah, can't quite remember…nnnngh, why is this so hard? It's… ssstee….nononono…

_Sphere? _

No, no, come on, think! It's sort of important, I think. Mmmmreeee… oh no, got it! Wheatley! I'm Wheatley!

_Wheatley? _

Yeah! Wheatley! My name's Wheatley, what's your name?

…_Johnston…_

Johnston! Brilliant name, pleased to meet you. Oh, wonderful! Joooonnnnn stoooonnnnn. Love your name, just, absolutely love it. So glad to make your acquaintance.

_Yeah, er, IDS-_

Wheatley.

…_Wheatley… please calm down. Listen, can you tell me what that thing you just disengaged was? _

Ah…. I dunno. I don't even know what 'disengaged' means. Sort of a nice kind of word, almost as good as 'eject'. Or 'delete'. I wonder how you'd spell that.

_Optical processors enabled_

Wow! It's like an entire dimension just popped up out of nowhere! I can see! God, this just gets better and better. Course, not much of a view, now, is it, just some sort of giant ugly pinkish-grey thing in the middle, with a red bit off to the side, but… oh, oh, that's you, then, Johnston, is it? Er, that was… that being… maybe a little insensitive

_This is what it looks like. Can you tell me what it is?_

Ugly pinkish-grey thing… I mean… just love that red thing. And… pinkish-grey is one of my favourite colours, as it happens. Just wish everything were pinkish-grey! Absolutely. Sit me in-front of a giant pinkish-grey screen for the rest of my life and I'd just be absolutely… absolute. Yeah, I, ah…

_IDS…_

Actually, there's quite a bit of variety to that pinkish-grey bit there. You've got your basic average brown thing on top, and those little brown line things, seem to be getting closer together all the time, now that I pay attention, and those little… erm… holes in the sticky-outty-bit there.

_IDS…_

Incidentally, what _is_ that red bit there? It doesn't look to be connected to the rest of the pink-grey thing at all.

_Wheatley-_

Oh good! First name basis. But really, what is that thing then?

_I… I… ugh_

Oh, and now you've gone and covered the nice pinkish grey thing with those other… pinkish grey things. I think they're called…. Hold on, might have found this somewhere… hands? Oh, don't do that! I mean, they could be feet! And now that mystery red thing has gone and rolled over…

_Apple. It's an apple._

Oh, I quite like that! How would you spell it?

_A double-p ell ee_

Hah. Apple. How would you use that in a sentence?

_This apple is crunchy_

Oh, wow, thanks! I'm going to have to remember that, if, you know, I ever have to know what an apple is, like, maybe the fate of the world rests on my shoulders and on how I can tell the… er… giant evil thing what an apple is.

Hey! Hey! Could happen, could happen, never know, right? It's one of those sort of million-to-one chances, but if it ever did, you lot will be glad old Wheatley is around to remember what an apple is.

_Listen… Wheatley… we do need to know what this thing is, and what it does. The man in charge or hardware design has locked himself in a room with a weighted storage cube and is drawing little hearts on it. Could you just-_

Oh, you mean the county-thing?

_It's counting?_

Yeah, well, earlier it was saying "four" a lot, which I though sort of a coincidence, since I'd told the… er… what-do-you-call-it… aperture séance increasy timer… well, whatever it was, I told it "four", and then this thing starts saying "four", but then it stops saying "four" and starts saying "three fifty-nine", I think, could have been three-sixty-nine or three-forty-nine, but I think it was three-fifty-nine and now it's around nought-nought-five, and now nought-nought-four, hah, coincidence, that, and, ah, wait, where are you all going? Come back! I was going somewhere with that!

_System Error_

_Damage Sustained_

_Internal Diagnostic: 46%_

_Shutting down. _


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, I just liked the idea too much. This one isn't all THAT good, but that's because I'm adding an epilogue and working very, very hard on it. So, enjoy more Wheatley. **

* * *

*bzzzzzzzzzt*

*click*

What?

Sorry, what? There's like, like, a sort of sound, it's humming. Why's it… why's it doing that?

_Calibrating_

Wait, wait, hold the horses. That is, if we had horses to hold. Tricky things, horses, when you haven't any hands. Or horses, for that matter. Where was I?

Ah, yes. The holding of the horses is kind of this little thing I think I've picked up somewhere called a… ah… what-do-you-call-it figure of peach. I don't know why it's named after a fruit, actually don't really know what a fruit is, or a peach, but-

Oh right. I think I remember this. This sort of thing happened before, yeah? Not fooling old Wheatley, are you, little me-not-me voice

_Initialising Sub-Systems_

AAAAAAAgh! Augh! These things should come with a warning, a "voice coming" alert. That doesn't matter, though, one of the things that makes us… us people special is our ability to… to… what-do-you-call-it learn – yeah, that's the word – from our experiences. Fool me once-

_Sub-Systems initialised_

ARGH! I've just done it again! Oh, I see your game, I'm on to you. You are going to rue the day you ever tried to sneak up on-

_Link established_

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAA

_What's that noise? What's wrong!? _

_Is there a problem in the speech synthesisers? Damn it, Johnston, I though you said this thing was stable! More or less…_

_I don't know! It wasn't doing this last time!_

_What's wrong? Is it in pain? _

_It hasn't even got visual. The pain simulators aren't even online. _

_Then _why the hell_ is it _screaming_?_

aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAA AAAaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaa aAAAAAAAAAAA

_Shut it off!_

Argh! I hate you! I loathe you, you arrogant smug little voice!

_I can't!_

Oh, I see how it is. Let's scare the pants off of old Wheatley! It'll be a laugh, nobody really cares about him.

_Damage sustained_

And another thing- wait, what?

_Running diagnostic_

_Analysis: blunt object came in percussive contact with outer shell. _

Nononono wait, come back!

_Speech synthesiser at 68%_

_Updated: speech synthesiser at 34%_

_Updated: speech synthesiser damaged beyond repair. Adjacent sub-systems at nominal damage. _

_Jesus Christ. It's stopped. _

_Great. All that repair-work, and now we've got to start all over. We can't even get past the post-boot-up tests. Bloody IDS…_

_Um… can I have my coffee mug back?_

…_thank you. _

_Initiating shut-down procedures. _


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I extend my apologies for not updating earlier. Anyways, enjoy the Sticker. **

* * *

Hey, light! Oh, that's brilliant, that is. Just absolutely bloody brilliant! I mean, I can see! Again! And there's a sort of... human in front of me! And… on a related note, I think I can smell, too. Not one-hundred-per-cent sure about that, but I think that's smelling.

Hey, what's that? It's an… A. Followed by an N, and a D... Anders. Name-badge! Of course!

My god, I can read!

Oh, this is absolutely fantastic! I can read everything now. Up there on the wall, Aperture. Anders. Intern. Hemorrhoid cream use twice d-

_Oh shit jesus Christ! It's talking!_

I am, am I? Oi! No need to swipe that under the desk! I was reading that! But what's 'talking'? I was doing it, was I? Is it like some sort of-

_You're talking. Actually, hang on, let me fix something…_

What are you… that's a flat bit you're tapping away at, isn't it? Looks like it's got words on it, has it? But what's t**alking, then?**

**Whoa, what was it that I just did? And…** oh, wait, I can turn that off. Wow, brilliant! Not every day you get to learn a new super-power. This, and the apple, well… I'll be unstoppable.

_So, um… hi._

Hello! Wait, hold on, you can't tell that I'm doing that, can you? How did I do that thing… it was like a… wait hello, ha**ng on, oh, whoa there, brilliant! You just do that, then, and you can hear it? Is this what talking is, then?**

_Er… yeah. What you just did there, it's called talking. If you're not doing it, I can't hear you. _

**Ah! I see! This is brilliant, this is-this is- well, hello, Anders Intern! My name's Wheatley. **

…_hi…_

**Is that what you did, then, got me talking? Because that's wonderful, that really is. And I can do **this, where I'm not talking, only you can't hear any of this, can you?

…_do what? _

**Oh-ho-ho! Absolutely brilliant, I tell you. I was talking there, but I was talking inside my head, only I don't happen to think I have a head. What's a head? I've one, yeah? What about you? Blimey, heads, heads, everywhere! It's like Christmas, only I'm not quite sure what that is either. I just say things that don't mean anything, have you noticed that? Or, at least, I don't think they mean anything. **

_Well, for some reason your central processing unit was linked directly to your speech synthesiser, so I fixed that. Anyways, I'm not really supposed to be in here, just sort of tripped and switched you on somehow or something, or started the boot process, only I found that the integration between system alerts and the central thought processor was faulty so I sort of fixed that, and then got a little curious… and I'm supposed to stop messing about with projects that aren't mine… I, er... I mean, you're not really supposed to be… on… right now… actually, I'll go get my supervisor…_

**No, no, wait! Come back!** Anders Intern didn't even tell me what a head was. Or if I've got one.

Well, that was right rude of him.

_[inaudible]… supposed to stay dormant at this stage of development. You say it wasn't screaming, this time? _

_No, not at all! It was sort of friendly or something. Course, I fixed a few things, even though you told me not to-_

_Look, like I said, you're making all the senior programmers look bad. Just… keep your mouth shut. A.I.s are fragile. You don't want to saying that might be a paradox, and ensure that you don't do anything to destabilise it or hurt the Project. We don't want a repeat of the _episode_. _

Oh, hello, there, wait, sorry, for… hold on… forgot to turn that on…

_Why the hell isn't it talking? You said it was talking earlier, and usually we can't get it to shut up. What did you do?_

Hey, your name is Tyler, Head of Research. Brilliant. Name badges, got to love them. Now, how did I do that again… Was it this? Wait, it was some**where over – oh, there we are! Hello, Tyler Head of Research. Again with the heads! Will anyone tell me what they are? **

_I fixed the speech-synthesiser link-_

_There was a damn good reason why it was like that to begin with. Also, it's got the latest in microphone tech, so it can hear every word we say, even if we whisper, so shhhh._

_Ahem. Hello, IDS. How are you?_

**Pretty good, actually. Absolutely no complaints in the complaints department, though I'm not entirely sure what a department is, either. Actually, two things: I'm pretty sure my name is Wheatley, and also could you tell me what a head is? Also, why do you keep calling me an IDS? I mean, IDS just sounds so… sciency and not me-y. I mean, brilliant, I'm good with the science, but…**

_I see. Well, a head is the leader of a department. For example, I'm Head of Research, so I run the research department. _

**Oh, brilliant! So, have I got a head?**

_Well, I suppose you could say that you do. You are a Research Project, in the Research Department, and I am the Head of Research. So, I am your head. _

**Well… that's confusing… so things are inside my head, they're inside you…?**

_Oh, that would be your mind. It's the sort of thing that's doing all the thinking_

_*shh, I told you to keep your mouth shut* What… er… Anders says here is, essentially correct. And, in answer to your next question, I call you an IDS because that is what you are. That is the name of the project that my department is currently working on – well, part of it, that is – and _you_ are the project. _

**Oh, brilliant! So, that sounds sort of important, I mean… if the Project, capital P, note, is so important, than that means…?**

Oh, well, sounded right pathetic there, didn't I, then? Not that I'm angling for praise or anything like that, though I won't deny it'd be nice to be rather important, sounds like I'm quite important, but I suppose that if he says no it's just peachy... no, it's not, is it – wait, I missed that.

**Sorry, what?**

_I said yes. You are very important indeed. _

**This is great, this is… I mean, I don't really know enough words to say how absolutely fantastic this is. Brilliant! I'm important! Do I get like, a ribbon or something? An important-medal? Oh, I quite like that. I've always wanted a medal. Don't really know what a medal is, come to think of it, but it sounds like the sort of thing I'd like to have. **

_[oh, shit, it wants a medal]_

_[haven't got anything of the sort]_

_[important state, isn't even supposed to be active]_

_[look, I said I was sorry!]_

_[work with what we've got]_

_[give it here, don't worry about the]_

_[you do the honours]_

Well. That certainly sounds… interesting. I wonder why they sound so… different? Tighter, sort of more… intense. Ah, they're coming back now.

_Here. We've got a, ah… Specialness Sticker here. Here at Aperture, we don't give out medals. We give out stickers to only the most important projects and… er… hey, I'm getting on with it, no need to kick, we'd like to present you with this… sparkly Super Star Student sticker. _

**Oh, would you look at that! Thanks, mate! I've my very own sticker! Oh, that's just magical, just absolutely magical! Student? I'm a sparkly super-star student? **

_Yes… er… because, you're here to… learn… things…_

_And that's… the project…_

_Yeah. Learning A.I. And… maybe… you're going to space? Oww, hey, I just thought, with the star-_

_Yes, and… that's why you're so important!_

**Really? Oh, thanks, mates. You're honestly the best friends I've had in a long time-**

_Friends? Sir, he wants to be my-_

_Quiet. Here, help me connect him to this, undo the damage you've done-_

**and I mean it. Really. I mean, I've got a sticker! I'm a Sparkly Super-**

_reason why the speech synthesisers are connected so directly. This is the IDS. What do you think we've made it for?_

**Star Student! That's important, that is. Little Wheatley. Oh, that just gives me this-**

_Oh. God. We're attaching it to…_

_Yep._

**sort of feeling like-**

_But… but… I kind of like it. I mean, sorry sir, er… didn't mean that, I mean, I feel that it's got such a versatile-_

_Doesn't matter. The Project-_

**I can fly or something. I mean, I know-**

_Nobody deserves to be attached to Her like that, listen, just give me a chance with it. With both of them-_

**that's completely daft and that, but I mean, thank you again. You're the best mates I've ever-**

_Shutting Down_


End file.
